


Arthur returns

by little_dhampir



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Arthur returns fic, M/M, Merthur Party 2013, prompt 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-29
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-06 13:20:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1107340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/little_dhampir/pseuds/little_dhampir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin feels sick and tired of everything but then something magical happens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Arthur returns

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you [sidhwen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sidhwen) for being my beta on this one. This is for every member of Team Green. You all are fantastic.  
> Like always all mistakes are mine and mine alone.

Merlin felt tired. Not because of the lack of sleep last night. He felt tired of his life, of all the years waiting and waiting, always hoping Arthur would return to him. But after all the time spent waiting and no sign of Arthur returning, Merlin was sure Kilgharrah had lied to him. There were so many times Britain had needed Arthur and none of those times he had come back to him. Merlin was simply tired of waiting.

He had travelled the world, hoping that seeing all the places he had never even known to exist would keep him occupied; he tried every job imaginable and learnt every language that had sounded interesting to him. But nothing had helped to keep the loneliness at bay. Seeing all his friends die had broken his heart - well at least the part of his heart that hadn’t yet been broken until that day. Now he was truly alone. Didn’t even try to befriend new people, knowing that at the end of the day he would lose them too. And what difference would it make; in all the years he never had met anyone who managed to stay in his heart like Arthur. So loneliness was better than being even more heartbroken. 

And today was just a shitty day. Merlin had spent the night tossing and turning, restless like seldom before. He had thought about his place in the world again; especially now that it didn’t even look like Britain might need help in the future. How long could he still wait? Wait for Arthur when the chances of him returning got slimmer each day?  
Merlin tried to lift his mood with cooking; something he had actually learned over the years and even more surprisingly realized to like. Dancing through his kitchen while doing so always helped him feel better.  
Until the song changed; Merlin didn’t need to listen until the chorus to recognize the song. Neither to start crying. Christina Perri always did this to him.

Sitting there at the kitchen floor, sobbing, even though he thought that there couldn’t possibly be any tears left after all these years, and feeling his heart break a tiny bit more he suddenly felt something new. Like some kind of electrical charge going through him, a slight humming of his magic. Merlin’s heart started racing and he felt as if something was pulling him out of his flat, out of his street, away from the city and back to a place he knew better than any other place on this world. He started running, realizing where this feeling was leading him to and knowing this could only mean one thing. Tears were still streaming down his face, but gaining a different meaning with every step he got closer to the lake, hope rising in his heart.

And there it was, Avalon, right in front of him. The lake looked like always, it had not drastically changed since the day he had to let Arthur go. But standing in front of it now Merlin saw how the water started to move, like something was pushing against it from below. It rippled and then he saw a head. The shining sun made the hair on the head look golden and Merlin didn’t need to see the rest of the body to know what was happening. Running into the water while Arthur was rising he couldn’t keep his emotions inside. Laughing and crying at the same time he threw himself at Arthur as soon as he was at least partly out of the water. Hugging him, he felt all those muscles he remembered so dearly shift, felt Arthur’s skin against his and even after all those years it still felt the same. He only let go when he heard Arthur’s voice, making the familiar annoying sounding sound.  
“What happened to my clothes, Merlin?”

Later that night, after he had brought Arthur to his flat, using his magic to cover him, while crying tears of joy that simply wouldn’t stop coming and Arthur telling him to “quit behaving like a girl and finally tell him what had happened while he was away” Merlin realized that Arthur probably hadn’t come back because Britain needed him but because Merlin had needed him more than ever that day.


End file.
